Monday, March 10, 2008

I've posted many articles here by Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. His is a sound, sane, experienced view on the issues involving global warming and climate change. Do a search for his articles, visit his blog, check out his impeccable credentials.....educate and learn to think critically, for yourselves.This is one of the most important issues of our time.Peter

Mar 10, 2008The Political Issue Of Global WarmingBy Roger Pielke Sr., Climate ScienceThere was a candid admission in the newspaper Colorado Daily on February 22 2008 with respect to why the global warming issue is being promoted so vigorously in the media and in articles published in science journals. The text from the article “Carbon dioxide: friend or foe? by Evan Sandsmark” has the relevant excerpt:

“Many individuals, including a large portion of environmentalists, believe that a purely technological approach to stablizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere could lead to social apathy towards climate change. Ted Parsons, a professor at the School of National Resources and Environment at the University of Michigan, writes that the promises of air capture could carry a ‘moral hazard’ because political pressure for near-term efforts to curtail climate change may be reduced. Air capture also addresses one of many factors adversely affecting the environment.

The climate crisis is a powerful tool to motivate change - like checking the ever-expanding global population and excessive resource consumption - and if the urgency of climate change is compromised, other environmental projects may fall by the wayside.”

Thus we have the reasoning as to why the science issues on Climate Science have been mostly ignored - the issue is not about climate science. The goal is to use the term “global warming” (with “climate change” used to make the concept cover all aspects of climate) not to “motivate” change, but to force the public and policymakers to adopt specific policy and political actions that promotes particular agendas.Clearly, this narrow approach is doomed to produce poor policy decisions. Unless the media starts to recognize this inappropriate use of climate science, we will continue down the road to many actions that will have unanticipated and undesirable consequences.